With 187 points scored and a clear lead in WorldBench 6, Palicomp’s Phoenix i7 Attitude is a beast of a desktop PC. Its extra performance over the competition is due to a 16GB RAM allocation, which boosts one of the component tests in our benchmark suite; whether you see similar performance will depend on the programs you use.

Palicomp has kept down costs by selecting an nVidia GeForce GTX 570 graphics card. Games look great on the Palicomp Phoenix i7 Attitude's 23.6in full-HD Samsung display, even if framerates are a little slower than on competing PCs.

The Palicomp Phoenix i7 Attitude uses an Asus P8P67 Pro motherboard. It lacks many of the advanced features of Z68-chipset models, but costs less and performs well.

A 64GB Kingston SSD is configured as a discrete boot volume, offering faster bootup times and system responsiveness. A 2TB hard drive is also supplied with the Palicomp Phoenix i7 Attitude.

This machine is quieter than most, with a Cooler Master Sileo 500 system case that features internal sound-absorbing material. The standard Intel processor cooler has also been replaced with a quieter and more efficient Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro. The Palicomp Phoenix i7 Attitude isn’t a silent PC, but noise from the disk and fan is kept to a minimum.

The Palicomp Phoenix's ‘attitude’ instead comes from the speakers, which shoot sound at you from five separate units and a subwoofer.

Probably the most impressive-looking PC in this group, Palicomp's Phoenix i7 Phantom uses the Cooler Master CM690 Advance II system case to good effect. Devoid of flashy bits and pieces and angular whatnots, this case focuses on functionality and useful features.